Lucy Beaumont interview: I won't enter a Scottish castle

Funny, ditzy, deadpan, quick to laugh and peppering her conversation with Yorkshire ‘summats’ and ‘you nuhs’, in real life it’s immediately apparent that the Lucy Beaumont who appears on our screens, flinging flour on Bake Off and trashing Taskmaster is not an act. In person it’s the real deal, as the stand-up comedian, comedy actor and writer from Hull drops anecdotes that confirm why Would I Lie To You? say all her true stories sound made up.

Take her response to a question about how her current 65-date tour, Bad At Quiz Shows, Good with Weirdos is going. It’s just two nights in when we speak - she heads to Scotland in November and March - but already things have taken a turn for the funny.

“We wanted a projector and they're quite expensive to hire for a whole tour so we decided, me and my husband, to get a projector second hand. This man sells refurbished projectors and we thought, wow, we've got a real bargain, but you know when summat’s too cheap? And when he brought it he turned up in a converted ambulance that he lives in, and he had a cat in the back looking out the window. The first night the projector didn't work so he came out and replaced it at our next venue. And that didn't work. So he's coming out again. Everywhere we go, we turn up and there's a man in an ambulance.”

With a cat.

“Well, the cat has died since, sadly. It wasn't well but now its suffering has ended. And the projector's still not working. But yeah, we're going to invite him to the show tonight. I think he's just gonna stay on tour with us,” she says and laughs.

This is how she is. But why is she like this? Which is the question her pre-teen daughter asked her and the show is her attempt to answer..

“Why did she say that?” says Beaumont. “I'm 43 so I've got to that time where I have to assess my behavior and look into it. And I've learned to embrace it really, but with a life in TV you have no choice but to look at yourself a lot. I realise I think I'm in my own sketch show. I just have to get in a taxi and summat happens. I don't know why it happens to me. But every day summat funny happens, you know? So I think she's learnt to embrace it now, is the outcome of the show.”

Beaumont’s life is her material and she makes sense of it on stage and in public, apart from her private life - she doesn’t talk about her 2024 divorce from fellow comic Jon Richardson, with whom she made the mockumentary Meet the Richardsons, to protect their daughter, although she does reveal she has married again recently and lives near Sheffield.

Comedy just finds her she reckons, making her perfect for panel shows and why she has “found a home” on Would I Lie to You, where celebrities tell bizarre stories and others have to guess which may or may not be true.

“That’s my favourite. It's like my happy place. I really look forward to doing it because you can just tell the truth,” she says.

“I live this life where all my anecdotes sound like a lie but they're true. I don't really make anything up. It's a good place. It's like therapy, really. Yeah, the panel shows are my favourite. Not the quizzes.”

That’s because ‘Bad at Quiz Shows’ is true - she lost a contestant £79,000 on The Wheel and failed to revise Les Dawson for Mastermind. However, on reality shows she comes into her own with judges and viewers of all ages charmed by her optimism in the face of adversity, cheerfully putting chaos into ceramics on The Great Pottery Throw Down and unleashing ‘cow udder couture’ on The Great British Sewing Bee.

Of her quiz show failings she says:

“The worse I get the more I get offered. On The Wheel I hold the record for losing people the most amount of money. And these quiz shows are always for charity and ask which one and get in touch with them and you just know you're not going to raise them any money. So I've retired from quiz shows. I can't do any more. It's embarrassing now.

“My grandad lives in a cul-de-sac and he said you can't keep going on these shows. The neighbours are embarrassed. So that's it for me,” she says, sounding regretful.

So that’s the quizzes, what about weirdos? Why is she good with them?

“I don't know. And I wish I'd not mentioned that, but it just rhymes. It's me that's the weirdo. I don't think there is such a thing as normal, really, is there?”

As well as discussing her quiz debacles, Beaumont takes a look back at her life in a bid to find out why she is the way she is.

Born in Hull in 1983 and raised by Gill Adams, a single mother and playwright who won two Fringe First Awards at Edinburgh Festival, Beaumont studied drama in her hometown and graduated into acting and comedy, reaching the finals of So You think You’re Funny in 2011 and winning BBC New Comedy and Chortle awards.

Her writing took off with Radio 4 sitcom To Hull And Back, starring fellow Hullensian Maureen Lipman, and Beaumont established herself on the comedy circuit, becoming a regular on TV panel shows such as Would I Lie To You?, Eight out of 10 Cats and Taskmaster, as well as game shows like The Wheel and Weakest Link and last year was murdered on a giant chess set by Celebrity Traitors Alan Carr, Cat Burns and Jonathan Ross.

“There's only so long you can blame your mother for how you are,” she says. “I do a lot of that. I think one of the best bits in the show is where I go on a rant about how it was growing up in the Nineties compared to now. People seem to relate to it.

“Children in the Nineties didn't have feelings. That's probably the biggest change. When I look back, the whole of my Nineties childhood is hilarious, most people's are. I remember whenever my granny used to bring a Viennetta in we all had to stand up and do a round of applause - no-one had ever seen ice-cream on a tray before. When you look back everything was just a little bit more naive, wasn't it?

“No-one ever had a glass of water, but we all survived, didn't we?”

Beaumont might joke about blaming her mother but she also found her an inspiration and example of what life as a creative would be like.

“She inspired me because she struggled. I got a taste of what creative industry is like, how you can be uniquely talented but not be able to pay the bills. She went from being dyslexic and a single mum, leaving school with no A-Levels but so passionate about something she became brilliant. She was unemployed when I was at primary school and couldn't afford bus fares to go home after taking me then coming back later so would sit in a cafe and wait all day, writing conversations of women she heard. She managed to become a professional playwright, taking plays to Edinburgh and got loads of exposure. Then you realise everything is based in London.

“It was the 1990s and women weren’t tret the same and everything was boozy. A meeting at the BBC was all men who wanted to meet in the pub. I remember her coming back in tears. She was writing on the TV series, Band of Gold - Kay Mellor pioneered northern writers. But she slipped the discs in her back, and was in agony for years. Had that not happened I think she would have had a really successful TV writing career.

“I couldn't have had a better upbringing in what the industry is like and it's made me quite ruthless and I think probably why I've gone into stand-up. Because in stand-up, you're your own boss. I have complete control. It's scary, but when I go on stage it's down to me. It’s not easy but it's fun. I'm really lucky. It's just being silly, so it's lovely.”

“But seeing how hard it was for my mum, I've probably gone into stand-up because I'm like, ‘right, no one's gonna mess with me.’”

Beaumont enjoys TV and live comedy, but loves being face to face with a live audience most.

“Telly has been a real honour and I've done every show going and it's great, but there's something special about live comedy. Every night is slightly different. You can't beat that.

“And what's bizarre is if you're having a bad day you're actually better on stage. You’ve got an outlet. Your worst gigs are when you're really happy and laid back. An audience is very healing. Their energy creates the environment, so it's a lovely job.”

It was creating cake chaos on Bake Off that prompted Beaumont to find out ‘why she was like this’ and receive an ADHD diagnosis. She also has dyslexia.

“The show's definitely not delving into neurology,” she stresses. “It’s more silly stories and anecdotes, but I do touch on ADHD because the way I found out was hilarious when I made such a mess on Bake Off.”

Beaumont managed to get flour into sealed kilner jars at the back of the tent.

“Yeah, Prue Leith was losing her footing,” she says, aghast.

What was she making during the flour flinging?

“I can't remember. Chocolate cake.”

Maybe it tasted good, despite appearances?

“No. No.”

And does she still bake?

“Oh, no, no, no. I don't like where everything has to be exact because I don't really like numbers. I’d rather make a curry or stew where you just make it up as you go along.”

Has having a diagnosis made her life easier?

“I’ve started talking about it more because I couldn't really do a show about these funny things happening in my life without acknowledging it.

“But the fact is you have to get somewhere on time and do deadlines and keep your house tidy whether you've got this or not. I have to say to myself, ‘you can do it. You just find it a bit harder’.

“You understand yourself a bit more. What helped most was they said did you have tics between seven and 11 and I did. I found them so scary and I've always worried they're gonna come back, but they put my mind at rest that they probably wouldn't. I found it fascinating.

“I feel like I should be doing more to raise awareness and get things changed because it's a very expensive thing to have, and I can’t believe the mess we're in with it.

“I could afford a private assessment and I haven't got on medication, but that’s £150 a month and three assessments a year to check the dose, which is £350 every time. Even people that are well paid find that hard.

“I'm on the mild side, but there are people it massively affects and I can't believe they have to wait this long, that a child could go through their whole schooling and not get diagnosed. We're not very educated about the medication. Studies show it's really safe and if you start young, you have less mental health problems later.

“Even if you're lucky to get fast tracked or managed to wait three to five years on the NHS, or can afford the diagnosis, the hard bit is what to do next. You need cognitive behavioral therapy. Medication doesn't alleviate everything. We’re behind on how to treat it.”

While Beaumont’s show is about the funny side of neurodivergence, she is also passionate about her desire for change.

“I'd love to go into politics,” she says. “I think it would eat me alive but it’s something I’m seriously thinking about for the future. You just have to be positive that things do change, don't they?

“I'm worried about the national curriculum, about the lack of creativity. From the age of seven every week they do a lesson where they tell them the environment's broken and it's up to them to change things. Where's the safeguard in telling a child that when they can't even tie their own shoelaces? And the next week it's mental health and I have a problem with my daughter knowing what mental health is at such a young age. They have this weight on them. You can't tell a kid there's no future. That is what depression is.

“And if you take all the creativity out... Every day there should be dancing, singing, acting. You can teach maths through drama. Children are meant to be playful. It’s not the teachers’ fault. They've said the GCSE results are the best they've ever been but how are the kids feeling?”

Politics can wait as Beaumont tours and continues with TV, like last year’s Celebrity Traitors. Has that experience made her less trusting of other people?

“No, it's made me not want to go to castles in Scotland. I know what goes on now. In my head, all castles in Scotland have that going on.”

Is she looking forward to heading north again?

“Yes, I love it. It's our favorite place to come. It's just beautiful. And the further north you go, the people just get warmer and friendlier.”

What was the highlight of Traitors?

“Oh, gosh, the money,” she says and laughs.

“I did it because my friends were such big fans of the show. I got them round and said I'm going to be in the first UK Celebrity Traitors and have to have a psychological assessment and they all said at the same time, ‘aw, so you might not be in it then.’

“It was amazing. They were all genuinely good people. To the point I was thinking, every show, there's always one arsehole, so is it me? I treated it like a spa holiday.”

Also on her agenda is writing a sitcom.

“I've got lots of things in development. I'm really glad of the TV work, that's my bread and butter, but want to get something scripted away soon. I've had a film idea for ages. I've got to just knuckle down and write it.

“Also, I got married recently and my husband is a musician and we realised there's not many chances to dance to good live music with your kid so we've got an idea for a Kidstock, with 1960s and 1970s music that kids know from films like the Minion soundtrack with Rolling Stones and The Kinks. We thought that might be really joyful to do.

“But for the time being, the tour is it. It's just special. I think being in my 40s, there's something in me that values being in a room with people and all having a good time.

“You open the papers and it says AI is going to kill us, so we might as well have a laugh in the meantime. And funny is one thing it can't do, thank God. It’s got no sense of humour.

“Because life's too short, really, isn't it? At the end of the day, you do have to have a laugh.”

Lucy Beaumont, Bad At Quiz Shows, Good with Weirdos: Tuesday 3 November Aberdeen Tivoli Theatre, Thursday 5 November Dundee Whitehall Theatre, Friday 6 November Dunfermline Carnegie Hall.

2027 dates: Wednesday 10 March Glasgow Pavilion Theatre, Thursday 11 March Edinburgh Queen’s Hall.